


Strange New World

by moonmoth (greyvvardenfell)



Series: Fictober 2019 [27]
Category: The Arcana (Visual Novel)
Genre: F/M, Julian Devorak Route - Reversed Ending, Mild Language
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-27
Updated: 2019-10-28
Packaged: 2021-03-01 19:08:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,098
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23572105
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greyvvardenfell/pseuds/moonmoth
Summary: Reyja finds Julian in the Devil's strange new world.
Relationships: Apprentice/Julian Devorak
Series: Fictober 2019 [27]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1696495
Kudos: 6





	1. Loss and Gain

**Author's Note:**

> For the Fictober prompt: "It's not always like this."

Though the sky may swirl with more color than I’ve ever seen, the world tastes gray. We failed. I failed. I’m alone, adrift, separated from sense and the only thing that ever really mattered to me. I know why Julian did it. I should have been stronger for him, and maybe he wouldn’t have needed to. Now who knows where he is. We’re ruined whatever we do, bound to a chaotic realm where nothing means what it used to and rules no longer apply. But maybe, if I search hard and keep my hopelessness at bay long enough, I can find him again. It would be the least I could do to make up for losing so catastrophically when it came down to the wire.

There’s no telling how much time passes before I think to use the deck. I didn’t even know I still had the damn thing. Passing my hands over the cards again and again, I keep pulling the same choices in the same order: The Hanged Man, the Ten of Swords, the Seven of Wands, the Three of Swords, The Moon. Pain and heartbreak and sorrow and fear, a gulf keeping me and Julian apart. But I didn’t need fucking magic to tell me that.

Before I can tuck the Arcana back into their bag, another card calls out to me. Surprised, I slip it from its siblings and turn it over: the Fool. Its pale cocoon seems to shimmer in the light of the ever-twisting riot of color overhead and the card bursts into a thousand tiny silver moths, each trailing sparks of magic. They rise as one and surround me, darting through my skin as though I’m no more substantial than water vapor. But with each pierce, I can feel a little more of my power drain away. As their essence grows stronger, mine wanes. I drop the rest of the deck as I fall to my knees, spilling cards over the changeable ground. My vision swims; it crosses my mind that I may be dying, but somehow I know that the moths aren’t taking anything that will hurt me in the long run. We’re transacting. This is business. An eye for an eye, the new law of this new world.

When I can stand again, the swarm of wings has vanished, along with the scattered tarot deck Asra made for me so long ago. And though I can already feel in my gut what the result will be, nothing happens when I try to call a sphere of light to my palm. Any magical ability I once had vanished with them. It was for the best: I already proved I didn’t deserve it.

But I gained from the loss. There’s a door, solid and heavy, in front of me now, rather than the desolate wasteland I’ve been trudging through. A faded sign on rusty hinges hangs overhead, and my heart wrenches when I squint at it. I can just make out what looks like a raven reclined on a crescent moon.

I burst through the door without a second thought. I would give anything if my Julian is waiting for me behind it. Take my magic, take everything from me, if only I can have him back! If only I can…

A massive, hulking creature greets me, its feathered back turned, wings spread so wide they touch both walls. As I watch, the satiny pinions rustle with a sound like autumn leaves and those great wings contract, folding up against the creature’s broad shoulders. It must be at least seven feet tall, maybe eight, forced to crouch under a ceiling too low for it. Its legs are scaled and black, almost reptilian, ending in claws that could easily rip my arm off. But there’s something familiar about the lines of its chest, the flow of long feathers along the crown of its head, the sound of surprise it makes when it hears the door shut behind me and the look, oh, the look in his eyes when he turns…

“Julian?”

He doesn’t believe it’s really me at first. After he explains why, I don’t blame him. I don’t blame him for any of this, really. How could I? It wasn’t his responsibility to stop the Devil. It wasn’t his fault we didn’t. And my god, he didn’t deserve this. He didn’t deserve any of this. He doesn’t deserve any of this.

“Please,” I say, trying desperately to keep my voice from shaking as I reach out to touch one of his taloned hands. “Please let me help you.”

Too late, I realize there’s nothing I can do anymore. I’m powerless against the chains that bind him. He forbids me from even trying, but I have to tell him I lost my magic before I forget again.

“All the more reason for me to protect you, then, my darling!”

Oh, I missed hearing him call me that.

“The other monsters, the demons here… they all fear me.” His eyes darken. “The Devil broke me, Reyja, when he turned me into this. Do you know how many pieces of yourself you have to lose before— before you become something you don’t recognize in the mirror?” Julian laughs harshly and points at the far wall, lined with shattered mirrors. “Doesn’t matter how much bad luck I accumulate, does it? It’s all the same.”

“But I recognized you, Juley.” My voice doesn’t even sound like mine, it’s so small and weak. “And I found you. That’s not bad luck.”

“Isn’t it?” He shakes his head, then reaches for me slowly, hesitantly, desperate not to hurt me with his dangerous new hands. “Ah, don’t listen to me, love. Of course it was good luck. The first bit of it I’ve had here.” He brushes my arm and I can’t wait anymore. I take hold of him myself, intertwining our fingers like we always used to and ignoring the bite of his claws in my wrist when he folds them over. “I just wish… well, I just wish ‘here’ wasn’t here, if you catch my meaning.”

I sigh, catching his meaning completely. “It can’t all be like this, lovely. We’ll find something, somewhere. We have to. There have to be others… right?”

He stares at me for a long time, I think. Time is one of those concepts that obeys rules which no longer exist, so I can’t be sure, but it feels like it takes a bit for him to answer. “I don’t know, my dear,” he says. “But whatever else is out there, it can’t be worse than being in here without you.”


	2. You Didn't Ask For This

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Reyja and Julian adapt to the Devil's world together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the Fictober prompt: "I know you didn't ask for this."

Julian isn’t the man I knew anymore, though I still love him and I always will. I tell him so every time we wake up and every time we sleep. But he’s changed. I know he didn’t ask to. My god, I know that. And I would never be angry at him for what he’s become. He just isn’t the same man I once knew.

But I don’t think I’m the same either. I don’t think anything is.

He was tall before. Now he towers over me. My head barely reaches his elbow, even with the backward bend of his new knees and the perpetual slouch he was forced to adopt under the low roof of the tavern prison the Devil made for him. His wings are longer than he is tall, too, stretching easily ten feet from tip to tip. He has feathers all over, everywhere he had hair and more. And he had a lot of hair. From the waist down, thick black scales have started to replace his skin, like the thorny calluses of chicken feet. He doesn’t like me to rub his legs anymore, though he claims it’s from the lack of muscle over the bone rather than self-consciousness. I don’t know if I believe him, but I don’t want to push.

The feathers truly sprout on his thighs, downy black ones softer than lambswool. On good days, he lets me help him keep these clean. They venture far up his abdomen, forming an arrow under his ribs that spreads up into a flare of larger feathers across his pectoral muscles. I can touch these too, when he allows my touch at all. And just like when he was human, my Julian loves his head stroked. The feathers he has there are the longest on his body, except for the ones on his wings, and I could preen them all day, straightening each barbule one by one while he makes the most adorable little cooing sounds. It almost feels normal, to do that for him. No matter where we are or what trials we’ve encountered, I know I can help by running my fingers along his crown. I’m just taking care of him, making him feel good.

We sleep differently now, too. I don’t think either of us really need to anymore, but the routine is nice. And even after all of this, I love being close to him. I feel so safe in his arms, although working out how to fit in his lap with the new arrangement of his limbs took some trial and error. He whistles when he snores and bobs his head in his sleep sometimes. Part of me is waiting for the day he tries to take flight, the poor man. I can only hope he has a good hold on me when he does, though he’s far too heavy for it.

But I miss him. I miss the pleasant kisses, the talks of a gentle future, the smooth ripple of muscle under his skin. Of course he’s still Julian inside, however much he thinks he’s changed, but there are simply aspects of this world that will not allow him to be the same person he used to be. And that’s not even including the pact with the Devil. He’s hardened now, battle-ready and sly, as though a threat lurks around every corner. Like he was when we met, honestly, but I understood it then. We have yet to see another creature here, though, friend or foe. I’ve only encountered the moths I summoned to get me to him and he, only the Devil and the growls and taunts of distant beasts. They never show themselves. His smile is rare, his laugh rarer, and he has yet to kiss me any deeper than he would have after a dinner date, much less touch me or let me touch him.

That, I’m sure is self-consciousness. Once, while helping him groom himself, I couldn’t help but try to discover what he had amongst the feathers between his legs. He didn’t stop me, but I could feel the blood blaze beneath his skin when my search turned up nothing but a single swollen hole. He met my puzzled gaze with humiliated gray eyes.

“The Devil knew my vices too well,” he said sadly. “He, ah. He told me you wouldn’t want me back without a cock, without cum to fill you with. Is he… was he right?”

My heart had been aching since the moment I recognized him, but it tied itself in knots when he asked me that. Because he was serious. And I hated that there was even a tiny part of me that felt disappointed by the loss. For my own sake, not his. But still… “Oh, Jujubee, I love you. You, all of you. Not your cock or your cum.”

As he sagged with relief, I felt my stomach start to churn angrily. I might be a little disappointed, but I was burning with fury at the Devil in Julian’s name too. How dare he mutilate him like this, on his little power trip. How dare he do any of this. Julian caught my mood change and trilled in alarm, one of his new noises that seemed to embarrass him more than anything else because he couldn’t control them any more than he could the puff of his feathers in the cold.

But I just shook my head, my rage dissipating as quickly as it arose. Maybe, before, I would’ve been able to do something about the Devil. But now we were doomed. For all we know, we’re alone. Is anyone else even still alive? Do we have any way of contacting them? I don’t know. I’m dead in the water here. But at least, at the very, very least, I have Julian. And he may not be the man I once knew, but I still love him. And I always will.


End file.
